Bits Bucket for March 3, 2015
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
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Netanyahu’s has been carrying out ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. He has been blatantly lying about Iran even after he has been openly caught about it and has been exposed to the world. The US republican congress along with some democrats will let Netanyahu address them. I think this gesture is a slap in the face of the American people to let this scumbag get away with dividing the US congress. It also proves that the Evangelical voters in the US who blindly support Netanyahu/Israel are stupid.
Rant off
Bibi is coming! Bibi is coming!
Don’t forget to buy that Rapture insurance policy for your pets, LOLZ
Netanyahu: 38% of US adults see him favorably. 23% say they’ve never heard of him.
Slap in the face of the American people? No one cares but the people who have been fooled into thinking they have some say in how the country is run. All those flames being fanned for bucks by MSNBC or Fox. But mostly no one cares because a new cast of dancing with the stars was recently announced.
More disability, more opiates, more fatty food and all the ants will be fine.
Will the President of Iran or Palestine be allowed to address the US Congress and make their cases against lies and atrocities committed by Netanyahu and his Government ?
Fight lies with more lies. Maybe they should all meet at a NAR convention.
abraham foxman would like to have a word with you
Not many Americans care much about the Palestinian people. If fundamentalists and others support the continues Israel subjugation of Palestine, that doesn’t necessarily make them stupid.
Palestinians are pretty brown and nothing “rallies the base” better than dropping bombs on brown people
Spend some time reading the World Net Daily website, they are the Christian equivalent of ISIS
See also:
http://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kristol-podcast-bibi-boycotters-put-partisan-politics-ahead-security_872130.html
Do you think William Kristol gives half a sh*t about any of the people who put their boots on the ground?
Every Drudge Report link you click, you just make him richer
For every soldier who gets their legs blown off by an IED, William Kristol gets PAID
When Rachel Corrie got run over by an IDF bulldozer, he was hauling bags of cash to the bank
When the towers fell on 9/11, his net worth added another digit
American taxpayers and voters you are being played for suckers and fools
Interesting that people are getting so worked up about this speech not being “coordinated” with the White House. Are they so upset that they didn’t get to pick what shade of red was the carpet?
‘In 2006 Sidney Blumenthal noted the paper’s relevance to potential Israeli bombing of Syria and Iran, writing that “In order to try to understand the neoconservative road map, senior national security professionals have begun circulating among themselves” the Clean Break “neocon manifesto.”[9] Soon after “Taki” of The American Conservative wrote that: “recently, Netanyahu suggested that President Bush had assured him Iran will be prevented from going nuclear. I take him at his word. Netanyahu seems to be the main mover in America’s official adoption of the 1996 white paper A Clean Break, authored by him and American fellow neocons, which aimed to aggressively remake the strategic environments of Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. As they say in boxing circles, three down, two to go.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm
Bibi is mad that Obama didn’t send American troops to fight in Syria, and now he’s mad that we won’t go to war with Iran like he wants us to. Things were so much easier for him when the little Bush was in the White House.
Israel and Saudi Arabia have the same national anthem: Onward Christian Soldiers. Their neo-con cats-paws are there to make it happen, regardless of the price Americans end up paying.
Oy. Nuts.
A Most Unsettling Trend: Christians Rejoicing in ISIS
March 1, 2015 by Hemant Mehta 257 Comments
The author categorizes the responses as these types:
Thrilled and Excited Over a Great Battle to Come
God’s in Control: Happy That ISIS is Carrying Out His Plan for Christians
Gloating Over the Coming Fate of Non-Christians
A Startling Eagerness for Earth’s Demise, Which They Hope ISIS Brings
Viewing Themselves as Heroes of a Literary Epic
These f*king nut jobs believe the Earth is 6,000 years old, speak in tongues, handle snakes, have sex with their siblings, don’t have shoes or dentistry or electricity, but they sure know how to “rally the base” and elect a Congress who wants to launch World War III just so a bunch of mouth breathing, knuckle dragging, window licking, Creation museum attending, Christian Zionists can get Raptured five minutes sooner
I say we “Take America Back” from these kool-aid drinkers, send them on a forced march “Trail of Tears” to South Carolina, crown Lindsey Graham as Emperor, then eject South Carolina from the United States
If they want to spend their lives on their knees fluffing Bibi, they can go do that, but not on the American taxpayer’s dime
The motivation for the Egyptian Copts is different than for American Fundyvagelicals. The Copts believe that martyrs are guaranteed a place in heaven. They don’t believe in the Rapture, which is an American Fundy theological innovation.
The fundies want to hasten the Rapture, which is why they get tingles from any talk about Armageddon.
I’m pretty sure the Copts believe in Gnostic scriptures, which to true fundies would be heresy. Because as we all know, the King James Bible is the literal, infailable word of God, to the letter.
Boots clearly hates republicans for some reason.
These f*king nut jobs believe the Earth is 6,000 years old, speak in tongues, handle snakes, have sex with their siblings, don’t have shoes or dentistry or electricity, but they sure know how to “rally the base” and elect a Congress who wants to launch World War III just so a bunch of mouth breathing, knuckle dragging, window licking, Creation museum attending, Christian Zionists can get Raptured five minutes sooner
I say we “Take America Back” from these kool-aid drinkers, send them on a forced march “Trail of Tears” to South Carolina, crown Lindsey Graham as Emperor, then eject South Carolina from the United States
If they want to spend their lives on their knees fluffing Bibi, they can go do that, but not on the American taxpayer’s dime
+1 Well said, Sir.
All of these so called liberal and libertarian atheists bowing at the altar of psychopathic Islamic fundamentalism. Point your mats east as you repeat the programmed anti-Semitic and anti-Christian bile learned from years of professorial indoctrination.
Islamist are not freedom fighters, they are the enemy of humanity and have been since the seventh century. They (the islamists) think this is the battle of Armageddon, they want WWIII and they will get it with your support.
Due to Obama delaying the XL pipeline Warren Buffett’s investment in BNSF has been ranking in the bucks, carrying oil by train instead of pipeline increases its cost of shipping, increases the co2 emissions of the transit and finally and most importantly is the more dangerous transmission method, what is does not do is prevent the development of oil sands:
http://bakken.com/news/id/233807/texas-releases-details-on-crude-shipments-from-bakken-region/
Isn’t crony capitalism grand? Warren Buffett is one of “Bamy’s favored pet oligarchs. Successful looting is assured.
Who is whose (whom’s?) pet?
Good point. Not sure how many layers you have to peel back to find the actual organ grinder.
How did you get out of your cage?
“Rats can fit through some surprisingly small holes, but it isn’t because their bones are soft or come apart. Rats can fit through small holes because their bodies are long, flexible and cylindrical in shape. They are burrowing animals that spend their lives running down tunnels and through tight spaces.”
info from ratbehavior org
And their fleas can spread the plague.
When you have nothing to refute the substance, engaging in ad hominem attacks is a common tactic.
Do you have anything to support the substance?
That was my thought. Then I took a look at Dan’s wording and noticed that he didn’t explicitly claim that the Obama has delayed the pipeline to benefit Buffett.
Speculators in the necessities of life are not positive contributors to the wellbeing of their fellows.
If you like your higher gasoline prices you can keep your higher gasoline prices:
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/marketquotes/CL.html
Dan,
Remember… falling prices of all types is positively bullish and good for the economy.
That includes fuel prices.
Crude Oil Collapses 50% YoY
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/future/crude%20oil%20-%20electronic
“Rats can fit through some surprisingly small holes, but it isn’t because their bones are soft or come apart. Rats can fit through small holes because their bodies are long, flexible and cylindrical in shape. They are burrowing animals that spend their lives running down tunnels and through tight spaces.”
Most of their skeleton is flexible cartilage like your ears.
The problem:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-03/03/content_19699510.htm
The solution.
http://goo.gl/7NdnhU
Part of the solution same source:
Documentary on pollution restarts debate on the damaging impact of burning fossil fuels
The nation will launch a five-year action plan to make the industrial use of coal cleaner and more efficient amid a renewed debate on air pollution that has been sparked by a documentary on smog.
The industrial sector, excluding power generators, aims to cut coal use by more than 160 million metric tons by 2020, an official at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said. Major industries, including those in the coking, coal chemical, industrial boiler and industrial furnace sectors, burned 1.6 billion tons of coal in 2012, accounting for 46 percent of China’s total consumption. The electricity industry consumed 1.87 billion tons of coal that year.
Over the weekend, fossil fuels, particularly coal, emerged again as a major culprit in the nation’s smog plague.
A former Chinese celebrity TV presenter, Chai Jing, released a self-funded documentary titled Under the Dome on Saturday, which set off intense discussion on China’s social media. As of Monday, it had been viewed more than 28.8 million times on video site Youku.
Coal consumption fell last year for the first time in 14 years, sliding 2.9 percent year-on-year to 3.51 billion tons, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
“Coal utilization in China’s industrial sector remains very inefficient, and it is a key area for air pollution prevention efforts,” said a draft version of the action plan.
The plan targets a reduction in emissions from such sources as smoke dust, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides by 1 million tons, 1.2 million tons and 800,000 tons, respectively, by 2020.
The action plan directs local industrial and fiscal authorities of coal-guzzling cities to draw up implementation plans and submit those plans to the MIIT by the end of September.
Provinces are required to report on the progress of the implementation plans from 2016 and the results will be sent to the MIIT and the Ministry of Finance.
Heavily polluted northern province Shanxi on Monday unveiled its five-year energy development strategic plan, which said the province will limit its energy use to 260 million tons of standard coal equivalent.
On the national level, the government will broaden financing channels for the more efficient use of energy and facilitate growth of specialized energy-conservation companies by offering technical and financial support to them, said the draft plan.
The nation will encourage financial institutions to offer “green credit” to projects that fall under the auspices of the action plan and channel private capital into equity funds, industry funds and other such instruments to support those projects.
this message paid for by koch
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/science/climate-change-researcher-wei-hock-soon-offers-a-defense-of-his-practices.html
and now back to your regularly scheduled drudge report links
Another part of the solution and a growing source of demand for platinum and palladium which go into pollution controls for vehicles:
Guangdong province upgraded their emissions standards to the National V standard for light vehicles in the capital city Guangzhou and other eight adjacent cities on March 1.
The provincial Department of Environmental Protection announced on Feb 15 that it will apply the upgraded standard in the Pearl River Delta, formed by Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Huizhou, Jiangmen andZhaoqing, and the transition period from the previous standard ended in February.
From March 1, the nine cities will no longer register plates for light vehicles built according to the National IV standard, and will also cease to register National IV heavy duty vehicles from July.
The National V standard requires sulfur content in fuel to be no more than 10 parts per million (ppm), one-fifth of the National IV’s 50ppm.
Guangdong province started to use the National IV standard in August 2013. Beijing Municipal authorities applied the National V standard in September 2013, followed by Shanghai in April 2014.
I’m going to print some cash, loan it to you serfs, collect some interest and if you don’t pay me back I’m coming after your stuff!
Welcome aboard!
Best of all, 95% of the serfs will vote to continue such larceny.
Larceny? I call them gifts.
What stuff? I am going to borrow the cash, mortgage my house with it, stuff the cash under the matress, wait for the next crash, and buy my next house with cash while you foreclose on the other one.
AYYY zeeee …. dddddewwwwwwwwd!!!!
Just a couple blue collar guys, secretly digging a sophisticated tunnel in a public park, with stolen plywood, next to a future national sporting venue. The police assure us it’s nothing to be concerned about, the men were digging the tunnel for undisclosed “personal reasons”. Charges won’t be pressed, nothing to see here, move along, eh?
http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/03/02/toronto-tunnel-police-say-investigation-is-over-after-two-men-confess-they-dug-hole-for-personal-reasons/
Taking “man-cave” to the next level? Seems kind of dubious, though.
“Until a second Massachusetts hero arose, John Kerry. John Kerry said no-no we’re not going to tax your heath insurance, we’re going to tax those evil insurance companies. We’re going to impose a tax that if they sell health insurance that’s too expensive we’re going to tax them. And conveniently the tax rate will happen to be the marginal tax rate on the income tax code. So basically it’s the same thing – we just tax insurance companies, they pass on higher prices, that offsets the tax break we get into being the same thing. It’s a very clever basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter.”
Jonathan Gruber
Obama “Very Interested” In Raising Taxes Through Executive Action
Conn Carroll | Mar 02, 2015
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confirmed Monday that President Obama is “very interested” in the idea of raising taxes through unitlateral executive action.
“The president certainly has not indicated any reticence in using his executive authority to try and advance an agenda that benefits middle class Americans,” Earnest said in response to a question about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling on Obama to raise more than $100 billion in taxes through IRS executive action.
“Now I don’t want to leave you with the impression that there is some imminent announcement, there is not, at least that I know of,” Earnest continued. “But the president has asked his team to examine the array of executive authorities that are available to him to try to make progress on his goals. So I am not in a position to talk in any detail at this point, but the president is very interested in this avenue generally,” Earnest finished.
Sanders sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Friday identifying a number of executive actions he believes the IRS could take, without any input from Congress, that would close loopholes currently used by corporations. In the past, IRS lawyers have been hesitant to use executive actions to raise significant amounts of revenue, but that same calculation has change in other federal agencies since Obama became president.
Obama’s preferred option would be for Congress to pass a corporate tax hike that would fund liberal infrastructure projects like mass transit. But if Congress fails to do as Obama wishes, just as Congress has failed to pass the immigration reforms that Obama prefers, Obama could take actions unilaterally instead. This past November, for example, Obama gave work permits, Social Security Numbers, and drivers licenses to approximately 4 million illegal immigrants.
Those immigration actions, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will raise federal deficits by $8.8 billion over the next ten years.
is this the fundamental transformation we were promised?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/mystery-paralysis-in-children-is-perplexing-parents–and-researchers/2015/03/02/20e1113a-b69d-11e4-aa05-1ce812b3fdd2_story.html?tid=HP_more?tid=HP_more
if you like your mystery paralysis, you can keep your mystery paralysis
Sacrifices must be made if we are to import enough voters to achieve Comrad Pelosi’s permanent Democrat Supermajority.
What’s a little polio between friends?
Forward
Aw, heck, it’s just acts of love from south of the border.
I wonder that the families of these poor kids don’t question this instead of letting the CDC and medical researchers manage the message.
“Mysterious” disease indeed. It’s polio, pure and simple.
” It’s polio, pure and simple.”
Were the kids affected not vaccinated for polio?
“vaccinated for polio”
A bad batch of the vaccine can result in polio. An acceptable risk, they say.
But these kids are scattered all over the country. Hard to imagine that resulting from a “bad batch” of vaccine.
A bad batch of polio vaccine would have been recalled and publicized widely.
Probably so, although it would be politically incorrect.
And the same imbeciles who voted for Obama thought that “soaking the corporations” was a good idea, despite the fact that the corporations will ALWAYS pass along those costs to consumers.
If you take on mortgage debt at current massively inflated housing prices, you’ll enslave yourself for the rest of your life.
“Debt is bondage.”~ Suze Orman, May 11, 2013
Don’t Be A Debt Donkey®
“The borrower is slave to the lender”
Debt is DUMB.
Apologies if anyone posted this yesterday, but if this isn’t an inside job, I dunno what is.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/02/us/north-carolina-armored-truck-heist/
Had the same thought here, Palmy. The truck happens to “break down” right where the robbers are lying in wait? Uh huh, yeah. I would start looking wherever they service the motor-pool.
Heh. Figures this would happen with a South Florida (Miami) company. If this hadn’t been an inside job, the driver and security guards would have been blown away in the woods and left there.
That being said, I used to know this lady who was an old timer in the antiques and collectibles biz here in Florida. Back in the day before ebay and other internet sites, the way that most dealers made money in addition to their shops or antique mall ventures was to do shows in various cities around the state that they could drive to. There was a circuit that consisted of Tampa, Orlando, West Palm Beach, Miami and Sarasota.
She told me that the Miami shows could be dangerous for the dealers. Colombian gangs used to case the shows and target the older, mom and pop dealers who displayed gold and silver jewelry. Often these dealers would have to drive some lonely roads back across the state after the show. The gang members would follow them and either force them off the road, or accost them if they pulled over to make a rest stop. She said at the Miami shows particularly, the show management used to make announcements over the PA system for people to be alert while packing up and driving home.
The sunshine state!
More central bank economic distortion.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/austria-sells-bonds-at-negative-yield-2015-03-03-81035718
I’m going to loan you some money to buy an overpriced house cause odds are you will never make all the payments over a 30 year period. I will get the house back plus all the money you gave me.
And we thought ZIRP was bad. Now countries will get paid to run deficits.
This situation is waaayyyyy over the top. I used to walk home alone from school when I wuz a pup. What’s the problem here?
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/parents-kids-walk-appeal-neglect-case-29350165
How are parents supposed to walk the kids home if they’re both working?
According to Movoto, the inventory of houses for sale in Phoenix is higher than it has been since December 2011.
That was 3 years and 4 months ago, FYI.
And there are fewer buyers because the flippers and hedgies are gone. No profits to be had buying at these prices. But the sellers are still not in panic mode from what I see.
how many more years are we gonna jawbone about a 1/4% rate hike?
You need to buys stocks cause your 5% cd rates wont be coming back for a long time. when you buy stocks people in office get paid!
These low rates for savers are punishment for people screwing over bankers on home loans.
Just back from a short stay with my best friend in PHX - we went about there for a few days looking at properties - what I saw were some nice communities in and about Scottsdale and PHX and seemed that the for sale signs started popping up like weeds no matter where we were. There seemed to be some folks who were desperate to sell their shacks. There is a new development going up in DC Ranch area (very nice section of Scottsdale and way past what I want to spend) by Standard pacific homes - most are sold at pre-sale / pre-build and I kept asking who is buying this stuff at near 300.00 per s.f. build? What I sense is a blown up bubble in price waiting to pop. Most props are well over 200.00 per s.f. sale price.
A lot of those homes are probably being sold by Canadians eager to sell while the Loonie is weak. They can cut prices and still make a profit because of the strong dollar.
EGG-selent.
Went to look at a place in Scottsdale Ranch - interesting in that it is owned by an older woman from France - she is selling - moving back to Pareeee and needing to unload - I thought different - the Euro is cratering and I think she is just mitigating her loss. The realtor told me that she would consider a ‘reasonable offer’ - whatever that really means. Place had already been discounted by 20k and going down. 1775 s.f. - many amenities and great location - me thinks this is a bell weather there.
Got to keep the sheeps arguing so we can get this sh#t done.
Fast Tracking Obama’s Trade Agreements
Pat Choate
Posted: 02/02/2015 4:56 pm EST
President Barack Obama is finishing 6 years of negotiations on a broad economic agreement with 11 other nations on the Pacific Rim. Enacting this pact — The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) — is the president’s top legislative priority in these last two years of his presidency.
The importance of the thousands of details in the TPP cannot be overstated for they will define the 21st-century rules that will define the economic relationships and commerce for what is now more than 40 percent of the world’s annual Gross Economic Product. TPP, moreover, will be the foundation for future negotiations of a North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement between Europe and North America.
Importantly, the TPP is being crafted under the rules of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. If adopted, this pact will have the force of a treaty on U.S. laws, regulations and administrative actions, and the U.S. will honor the TPP as a treaty. Thus, even by any other name, such as an “Executive Agreement,” the TPP will in reality be a treaty.
However, President Obama is unable to secure the two-thirds majority vote in the Senate required by the U.S. Constitution to ratify the TPP as a treaty. Because a strong majority of Democrats and many Conservative Republicans oppose this pact, he also cannot secure Congressional approval under the Regular Order rules of Congress.
Thus, if the TPP is to be ratified, President Obama needs the Republican leadership in Congress to ignore the Constitution’s Treaty provisions, set aside Regular Order in both Houses, and adopt a “one-issue-only,” much-weakened set of rules by which the TPP will be considered. These weak rules, first used in 1974 by President Nixon, are known either as Fast Track Trade Negotiating Authority (FT), or more recently as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA).
After the 2014 elections, Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Boehner (R-OH) jointly and separately announced that they would support President Obama’s request for Trade Promotion Authority and give its implementing legislation a priority consideration.
Such support is baffling since President Obama, throughout the TPP negotiations, has refused to allow members of Congress or the American people to see the text of the treaty, claiming such transparency would impede negotiations. Now that the negotiations are effectively finished, Mr. Obama continues to keep the text secret, claiming that public disclosure of the text would impede ratification. The question, of course, is what mysteries and surprises lie therein?
The mystery about all this is two-fold:
(1) Why do so many members of Congress publicly support a trade treaty whose details they do not know, and
(2) Why do Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker Boehner — who won reelection on a platform of “Stop Obama” — support weakening Senate and House legislative processes to ratify a treaty whose text was negotiated without Congressional input and which the president keeps secret from them, their Members and the public.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pat-choate/fast-tracking-obamas-trad_b_6590656.html - 243k -
The Trans-Pacific Partnership clause everyone should oppose
By Elizabeth Warren February 25
Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, represents Massachusetts in the Senate.
The United States is in the final stages of negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive free-trade agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Singapore and seven other countries. Who will benefit from the TPP? American workers? Consumers? Small businesses? Taxpayers? Or the biggest multinational corporations in the world?
One strong hint is buried in the fine print of the closely guarded draft. The provision, an increasingly common feature of trade agreements, is called “Investor-State Dispute Settlement,” or ISDS. The name may sound mild, but don’t be fooled. Agreeing to ISDS in this enormous new treaty would tilt the playing field in the United States further in favor of big multinational corporations. Worse, it would undermine U.S. sovereignty.
This isn’t a partisan issue. Conservatives who believe in U.S. sovereignty should be outraged that ISDS would shift power from American courts, whose authority is derived from our Constitution, to unaccountable international tribunals. Libertarians should be offended that ISDS effectively would offer a free taxpayer subsidy to countries with weak legal systems. And progressives should oppose ISDS because it would allow big multinationals to weaken labor and environmental rules.
Giving foreign corporations special rights to challenge our laws outside of our legal system would be a bad deal. If a final TPP agreement includes Investor-State Dispute Settlement, the only winners will be multinational corporations.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…/02/25/ec7705a2-bd1e-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html -
Everything said here applies to NAFTA and the WTO.
Ben Jones go spend some time driving around Cleveland, Youngstown, Akron, Canton, Mansfield, Lorain, Toledo to see what NAFTA did to this country
The same part of Ohio where Wal-Mart had a holiday food drive for its own employees
These folks are just who citi, chase, and capital one ordered up. They surely need a loan.
Don’t forget what NAFTA did to Mexican farmers (smallholders, not agribusinesses) and workers. Iowa corn got dumped on the market for far less than local Indian farmers could charge, forcing peasants in places like Guerrero to grow opium or marijuana instead - “the crops that pay.”
Same for ILLANNOY - take a drive around here - Peoria, Springfield, manuf. areas of Chicago, quad cities - the rot is there to be seen.
“the rot is there to be seen.”
Got Rot?
Forward!
Phony:
Yep we got plenty of rot - so much rot that we are now an expert in exporting rot to the rest of the country.
Michael Minkoff is obviously a racist
IRS Defends Giving “Back Pay” Tax Refunds to Illegal Immigrants
Posted on March 2, 2015 by Michael Minkoff
What? It’s bad enough that the civil government gives so-called refunds to people who haven’t actually paid any taxes. But now the IRS is claiming that illegal immigrants with new Social Security numbers (thanks to Obama’s executive amnesty) are apparently entitled to “refunds” for taxes they never paid while they were earning money in the US illegally.
What could their defense of this possibly be? Here it is , for what it’s worth:
President Obama’s new deportation amnesty could grant Social Security numbers to as many as 4 million illegal immigrants, making many of them eligible for tax refunds under the Earned Income Tax Credit even for years when they cheated on their taxes, working off the books and refusing to file tax returns.
“Section 32 of the Internal Revenue Code requires an SSN on the return, but a taxpayer claiming the EITC is not required to have an SSN before the close of the year for which the EITC is claimed,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen wrote in his letter to Sen. Charles E. Grassley on Wednesday.
Right. So they can get refunds on earned income for years they didn’t have SSNs as long as they have an SSN now? That makes their previous activities not illegal anymore? Yay. How many months do you think it will be before illegal immigrants are also allowed to vote? Not long. In fact, perhaps they can even retro-vote for campaigns that have already ended. Does anyone have any doubt this is all a calculated attempt to create voters for the Democrat party? Could the timing be any better? No.
I’m pretty tired of this thing. It’s bad enough the civil government is eroding the rights and privileges of what it means to be an American citizen for people who actually have a legitimate claim on those rights. They are also giving away distorted versions of what’s left of our privileges to basically anyone who will register to vote.
Read more at http://lastresistance.com/10365/irs-defends-giving-back-pay-tax-refunds-to-illegal-immigrants/#Rcmc3dXSVlxB85s4.99
Crickets.
Nobody cares about the well being of hard working, tax paying, natural born Americans. It’s about votes and slave labor.
Most of your average professorial indoctrinated drones support anything this administration does…legal or illegal. Bush derangement syndrome caused far more side effects than just opposition to the war on terror, it set us up for tyranny.
City University Refunds Illegal Aliens Who Paid Out-of-State Tuition
New York is among 19 states that allow in-state tuition for immigrant students
by Breitbart News | March 3, 2015
City University of New York is returning thousands of dollars to about 150 immigrant students who live illegally in the U.S. and overpaid for their tuition.
A student group called CUNY Dreamers told school officials late last year that many immigrant students from New York paid higher, out-of-state tuition even though they were eligible for in-state rates, a difference of about $4,000 per semester.
A CUNY spokesman said administrators conducted a review of enrollments on CUNY’s 24 campuses and began the process of returning excess payments.
New York is among 19 states that allow in-state tuition for immigrant students. Its law requires immigrant students to have attended a New York state high school or received their GED in the state.
The Mexican media is in a lather because in the past few weeks some illegals were uppity and got shot by American cops. Will American cops be instructed by the PTB to not shoot Hispanics (while they continue to shoot everyone else)?
The Alinsky is strong in you my friend.
NYC Landlords Can’t Touch Rent-Controlled Flats: Bankruptcy
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-03/nyc-landlords-can-t-touch-rent-controlled-flats-bankruptcy
(Bloomberg) — It’s official: Tenants in New York City who file for bankruptcy won’t lose their below-market-rate apartments, thanks to a pair of opinions from the New York State Court of Appeals and the Manhattan-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Combined, the decisions remove the threat that people who file for bankruptcy in New York will be evicted from valuable apartments even though they’re current on the rent.
A group representing city landlords said the decisions “open the floodgates of imposing unprecedented financial and legal obligations” on “private property owners who provide rent-controlled apartments.”
Some New York housing stock is covered by rent-control and rent-stabilization laws dating from World War II. Regulated rents allow thousands of renters to pay sometimes much less than market rates while enjoying protections from eviction.
A woman in New York who filed for bankruptcy was told by a federal district judge in September 2012 that the value of her lease was property of the bankruptcy estate that the landlord could buy from the trustee.
The tenant took her case to the federal appeals court in Manhattan. That court asked the state’s highest court, the New York Court of Appeals, to rule on whether the right to live in a rent-stabilized apartment is “property” that can be sold.
In November, the state court ruled 5-2 that rent-stabilization rights are an exempt asset as a form of public assistance, which a bankruptcy trustee can’t sell. New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and Zachary W. Carter, New York City’s corporation counsel and chief lawyer, have both sided with tenants on the question.
In light of the state-court decision, the Second Circuit ruled Monday that a below-market lease is exempt from creditor claims as a public benefit.
The Rent Stabilization Association of New York City Inc. had urged the federal court not to follow the state court’s decision. The landlord group called the decision a “radical interpretation” that makes the rent-stabilization system “a partial government taking without just compensation.”
The landlords argued that turning a lease into a public benefit might “create unforeseen tax consequences for rent-stabilized tenants, in the form of imputed income.”
The case involved a $700-a-month apartment on Manhattan’s East Seventh Street. The landlord offered to buy the lease from the bankruptcy trustee and pay the tenant’s creditors in full. In addition, the landlord offered the tenant $100,000 to move out.
Alternately, the landlord would have let the tenant stay for the rest of her life, but she wouldn’t have been allowed to sublet or allow heirs to take over the apartment at her death.
The case in the federal court is Santiago-Monteverde v. Pereira (In re Santiago-Monteverde), 12-4131, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (Manhattan).
Region VIII news
Marijuana sold in Colorado last year weighs in at nearly 150,000 pounds
http://m.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2015/03/02/marijuana-sold-in-colorado-last-year-weighs-in-at.html?r=full
I wonder what percentage of that left the state.
and those Pornfessionals keep their jobs……..
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/03/02/government-cant-fire-employees-who-spend-six-hours-a-day-watching-porn/
What will you do if big money goes to cash? Stay in the stock market and ride out your losses, or join in the race to the exits?
Big money is moving to cash and so should you
Published: Mar 2, 2015 1:23 p.m. ET
By Kirk Spano
Back in the spring of 2009, I became very bullish on stocks after four things happened:
* The economic-stimulus package was passed to create jobs and partially catch us up on the trillions we are behind in deferred infrastructure spending
* Helicopter Ben’s first quantitative easing
* A blow-off bottom in stocks
* The President saying he’d buy stocks if he could
If you have read me, you’ll know I was bullish right out of the gate when I started writing here, saying ”Your major risk in 2012 is missing the upside” at a time most others were bearish. I was convinced that the coming revolution in American oil and gas — which I recognized ahead of most — would be a very big deal and thought monetary and fiscal stimulus would lift America out of a very dangerous situation. I have been mostly proven correct not only in my economic analysis, but also with investments that I’ve mentioned here.
By late 2013 though, it started to become apparent to me that we weren’t going to get the sustained economic growth we needed to have a boom period. Oppressive global debts and aggregate demand shortfalls driven by demographics in the four largest developed economies — U.S., China, Europe and Japan — are too much to overcome without another reset in asset prices. Despite that, money started to finally pour in from mom-and-pop investors into the markets for the first time since 2007. I warned that would end badly.
Where the world probably went wrong was relying too much on monetary policy, inflation targeting by non-reserve currencies in particular, and not actually building the things we need for productive economies. We have underinvested in infrastructure that is becoming dilapidated and other necessities that could become scarce in the next decade if we don’t wake up very soon. Meanwhile, we have overinvested in toys and counterproductivity. Much of that is represented by very overvalued tech stocks that have IPO’d recently.
I am not completely despondent. I think there is a way for the global economy to rebound eventually, in fact, three ways, only one of which is horrible. But that doesn’t really matter for this column. What matters here is that my thesis the past year or so that the big money was leaving the markets and that smaller investors were getting handed the bag is clearly true.
This past weekend in Barron’s, there was a special section with a headline article that described how large wealth-management firms were holding more money in cash and short-term Treasurys. In Berkshire Hathaway’s annual letter, Warren Buffett talked about holding cash and short-term treasurys, likely in response to the fact that Berkshire’s cash and Treasury holdings have grown to a record.
What does the bigger money taking lighter equity-asset allocations and heavier cash allocations mean?
…
It just means that stocks only go up.
2brony’s buttboy Scott Walker cut taxes and shrank government in Wisconsin
He also wants to put “boots on the ground” in the Middle East
He called the social safety net a “hammock”
But has no problem spending your tax dollars (borrowed from communist China) to launch World War III
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-03-03/scott-walker-targets-south-carolina-as-campaign-momentum-builds
Another corporate-state, Wall Street-fluffing, Constitution-trampling, neo-con stooge.
Hillary?
Amy Hoak is now a guest columnist for Business Insider too
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-millennials-are-changing-the-real-estate-business-2015-3
The HomePath trickle.
Hello HBB’ers and Happy Boehner-Is-Unconstitutional Day. You see, when Boehner invited Netanyahu he sort of trampled, er, overlooked, our beloved Constitution:
Article II, Section 3: “he [the President] shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers.”
The Framers clearly bestowed the power and responsibility for foreign affairs in the office of the President. It’s not Boehner’s job. I guess when you’re building the case for war it’s OK to trample the Constitution, eh?
you better stfu
the allegedly ‘christian’ lunatics in america’s red states voted for bibi
the war on terra has cost over 1.6 trillion dollars so far
did i mention that since i started browing on the washington times, fox news, weekly standard, world net daily, breitbart websites with cookies enabled that i now get banner ads for viagra all the time?
Are you saying the aging white guys who make up the core of the conservative movement are somehow compensating for their limpiness by being tough talking chicken hawks?
i’m not saying anything, that’s what the ad servers deliver based on the cookies in my web browser
i don’t mind the banner ads for finding wives in thailand or the philippines
Yup. It’s wedge politics — historically US Jews have been aligned with the Dems. I think this stunt is designed to try convince US Jews to switch parties by painting the picture that only the Repubs are man enough to be tough on terror and protect Israel.
AIPAC basically calls the shots for both parties.
So, is the president carrying out his duties in this matter by welcoming Netanyahu to visit him?
I think that he said that he doesn’t want to meet with Bibi now because an Israeli election will be held two weeks from today.
Is Obama going to subject any agreement with Iran to the Senate for a treaty vote pursuant to the U.S. Constitution?
Probably not. I assume the justification, right or wrong, will be that the imposition or non-imposition of economic sanctions is within executive discretion and is not a “treaty.”
It was really a rhetorical question because he has made it very clear he is not going to let Congress debate it.
Here’s a few whoppers:
‘Beyond the Middle East, Iran attacks America and its allies through its global terror network. It blew up the Jewish community center and the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. It helped Al Qaida bomb U.S. embassies in Africa. It even attempted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, right here in Washington, D.C.’
‘In the Middle East, Iran now dominates four Arab capitals, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa. And if Iran’s aggression is left unchecked, more will surely follow.’
‘So, at a time when many hope that Iran will join the community of nations, Iran is busy gobbling up the nations.’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/03/03/full-text-netanyahus-address-to-congress/
No other Israeli leader has been dumb enough to try to affect American foreign policy by getting involved in American domestic politics. I never used to question Israel’s motives much, but now I’m wondering what the hell they’re up to.
Keep your prayer may facing east as you worship the prophet Obama and his complete disregard for the constitution.
Does the constitution say that congress may not?
In other words, while the constitution says the president shall receive heads of state, it does NOT say that congress may not. And in the context of a document written at a time where more power was to be given to the people (and less to one person), do you think the founding fathers would really have objected to foreign leaders speaking directly to the elected representatives of the people (especially given that the Senate was expressly given the right to approve treaties)?
This is hardly a trample.
It’s certainly not like a president that openly is seeking legal advice to find every way possible to act unilaterally on issues that the House and Senate oppose (who had recently been given their power from the PEOPLE in an election).
In other words, the president is doing his best to find loopholes in the constitution in order to sh*t on the people.
What do you think the founding fathers would have found more offensive, the House’s actions in receiving Bibi? Or the president’s actions issuing executive orders?
The answer seems pretty clear to me.
I think I found a bride for Selfish Hoarder
http://www.infowars.com/is-this-the-new-poster-child-for-3rd-wave-feminism/
Time to “man up” and put a ring on that
Can we please have a definition for “third-wave feminist”? And while we’re at it, can someone show this person what an hourglass actually looks like?
What? You mean you don’t “envy her curves”? She says that women envy her figure.
I’ll be she looks really hot on her mobility scooter.
400 lbs? That guy’s gonna be a widower before he knows it. On the bright side, she won’t be collecting Social Security for 20-30 years.
Rockstar, don’t be a H8R
Damn! That’s some donkey!
Looked like a three seater to me.
”My hips always affect me when I’m on the train because I have to take up two seats,”
Use one side for a mattress and the other for a pillow.
Hillary and Rice have made a country that is not so nice for American consumers:
BENGHAZI, Libya, March 3 (Reuters) – A warplane belonging to the forces controlling the Libyan capital Tripoli bombed the oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sidra on Tuesday, causing only minor damage, according to a security official allied with the internationally recognised government. Oilfields and ports are increasingly a target in Libya’s conflict, which pits two rival governments and their armed forces against each other, nearly four years after the uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi. “They targeted the civil airport in Ras Lanuf, and oil tanks in Es Sidra. The rockets fell near the tanks, resulting in only minor damage,” said Ali Hassi, who is a spokesman for the forces guarding Libya’s oil infrastructure. Es Sidra and Ras Lanuf – responsible for half of Libya’s oil output when operating normally – have both been closed since December because of fighting between rival armed groups. A spokesman for the Tripoli-allied forces did not immediately respond to a request to confirm the attack. Islamist militants, who have profited from Libya’s chaos to increase their strength, on Monday shelled two oilfields, Bahi and Mabrouk, hitting a pipeline to Es Sidra, although details of the extent of the damage were not known. The North African OPEC nation’s production is currently around 400,000 barrels per day, less than half the 1.6 million bpd it produced before the NATO-backed war that ousted Gaddafi in 2011. -
See more at: http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/137500/Official_Libyan_Forces_Hit_Oil_Ports_with_Air_Strikes_Minor_Damage#sthash.5mMxBm0Q.dpuf
Another neo-con “mission accomplished.”
Desperate times means desperate measures
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2976147/Woman-admits-digging-dads-grave-search-real-will.html
I liked to see a similar analysis on what QE has done to defined benefits plans in the U.S.:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-03/draghi-s-rescue-plan-has-created-a-103-billion-problem
Pensioners are disposable. QE turns millionaires into billionaires. Questions?
Bear, I have some questions about San Diego, education, Cali, etc.
hbb muggy at gmail daught com no s p a c e s
I am shocked, shocked! to discover London’s housing boom is built on dirty money. Almost as far-fetched as Chinese embezzlers driving up the West Coast housing bubble.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-property-boom-built-on-dirty-money-10083527.html
Is there a time limit to how long you can stay parked at a walmart? I’m thinking of driving my van from walmart to walmart to save some money on housing costs.
They cater to RVs. Not sure how they’ll feel about your van. Or you could just get a membership to 24 Hour Fitness for $30 a month and park in their parking lots and use their showers. Pretty sure I’ve seen people doing that. And since it’s a 24 hour a day business and you’re a member it’s pretty tough for anyone to complain. After all you could be headed inside at any moment.
More pink slips for the 99%, “shareholder value” for the .1%. How’s that Obama economic recovery working out for you, ‘Murkins?
(link for comment above)
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102473872
Yellen: the Fed “works very hard to prevent regulatory capture.” BWHAHAAHAHAAHAAA!
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-examiners-free-to-flag-problems-at-banks-yellen-2015-03-03?link=MW_latest_news
Los Angeles slouches deeper into dystopia.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/03/03/3-men-wearing-black-ski-masks-open-fire-on-lapd-officers-in-south-la/
Hong Kong Can’t Build Public Homes Fast Enough as Demand Soars
by Michelle Yun
4:00 PM EST
February 5, 2015
(Bloomberg) — For Terence Tong, who lives in a 300-square-foot apartment with his parents and brother, Hong Kong can’t build public housing fast enough in the world’s most expensive place to own a home.
Tong joined almost 130,000 others seeking to purchase one of the 2,160 subsidized homes, the first in more than a decade, released for sale in December. The 30 percent discounted units start at HK$1.9 million ($245,000).
“They aren’t cheap, but at this moment I can say they’re still affordable,” the 30-year-old information technology employee said. “I’d like to have my own place. I can’t live with my family forever.”
Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying is racing against time to deliver on a promise to increase total housing stock by 18 percent over the next 10 years as soaring prices made homeownership impossible for those like Tong. The challenge is whether Leung can find enough land to accomodate his plan to build 480,000 new homes.
“The government is making a big effort, but meeting the target 100 percent will be difficult,” said Alnwick Chan, executive director at Knight Frank LLP. “Land supply will need to increase drastically to lead people to believe home prices will come down.”
Public housing, which makes up almost half of all homes in Hong Kong, is back in the limelight after an outcry against ambitious building plans laid out in 1998 forced the government to pull back construction. Now it’s expected to account for 60 percent of Leung’s supply target.
Income Limit
The new subsidized units range from 34.5 square metres (371 square feet) to 47.5 square metres in size and successful applicants can borrow as much as 95 percent of the sale price.
A family can’t earn more than HK$46,000 a month, which means around 80 percent of the city’s households would qualify, according to government data. Monthly income can’t be more than HK$23,000 for a single person, such as Tong, who says he barely qualifies because he takes home about HK$22,000 a month.
“For young people wanting to buy their first home, their only way may just be subsidized housing,” said Chan of Knight Frank. Anyone below the income and asset threshold will apply “because they know they don’t have a chance in the private market,” he said.
The average per-square-foot price for 100 private housing projects tracked by realtor Midland Holdings Ltd. exceeded HK$10,000 for the first time last month. A 363-square-foot apartment at one of the projects changed hands for HK$4.5 million in January, 17 percent more than a similar transaction a year earlier, according to Midland.
Soaring Prices
A government program to sell cheap housing was suspended in 2002 under then-Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa’s administration to support the private residential market where prices plunged as much as 70 percent after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Regular land sales to private developers were also halted and resumed only in 2010.
The drop in supply sent prices soaring. They have doubled over the past five years spurred by record-low mortgage and an influx of mainland Chinese investors. They gained 13 percent to a record last year, a government index shows.
“Those who choose to buy now either are convinced there’s no way the government can increase supply significantly or they don’t believe it has the real intentions to do so,” said Edward Yiu, a real estate professor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Housing Affordability
Hong Kong has the worst housing affordability out of 378 metropolitan areas in nine countries, with the median home price 17 times household income, according to an annual study by consultancy Demographia.
Almost one-third of the city’s housing stock is public rental units, typically clusters of tall uniform towers in suburban areas. A family applying for a public rental home now has to wait about 3.1 years, compared with a two-year wait four years ago, according to the Housing Authority.
Leung’s resolve to address the city’s home affordability crisis comes as he tries to shore up his popularity, which plummeted to a record low last year amid a near three-month-long street protest against China’s interference in the city’s leadership elections in 2017.
Finding Land
The government is finding it difficult to get enough land for more housing. It has identified 150 sites that can accomodate 210,000 new homes, though only nine have been rezoned for residential development purposes, according to Development Secretary Paul Chan.
The government has floated the possible rezoning of land in country parks, which makes up 40 percent of Hong Kong, an idea that has met with resistance. A plan to build new districts in northeastern Hong Kong led to protests by villagers whose current homes would give way to the development.
“Beyond 2020, the land supply plan is still under review and just part of a broad framework,” said Chan of Knight Frank. “Those will take time.”